one comfort. Men will think pride has had a fall. Let them indulge their own pride in thinking that my fall will make them higher, or seem so at least. I have the satisfaction to recollect that my prosperity has been of advantage to many, and to hope that some at least will forgive my transient wealth on account of the innocence of my intentions, and my real wish to do good to the poor. Sad hearts, too, at Darnick, and in the cottages of Abbotsford. I have half resolved never to see the place again. How could I tread my hall with such a diminished crest? How live a poor indebted man, where I was once the wealthy-the honored? I was to have gone there on Saturday in joy and prosperity to receive my friends. My dogs will wait for me in vain. It is foolish-but the thoughts of parting from these dumb creatures have moved me more than any of the painful reflections I have put down. Poor things, I must get them kind masters! There may be yet those who, loving me, may love my dog, because it has been mine. I must end these gloomy forebodings, or I shall lose the tone of mind with which men should meet distress. I feel my dogs' feet on my knees. I hear them whining and seeking me everywhere. This is nonsense, but it is what they would do could they know how things may be.

OF STUDIES.

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business: for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one, but the general counsels, and the plots and marshaling of affairs come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience for natural abilities are like natural plants that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth direc tions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and

digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others, but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man, and therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit, and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.

Francis Bacon.

THE LORD HELPETH MAN AND BEAST..

During his march to conquer the world, Alexander, the Macedonian, came to a people in Africa who dwelt in a remote and secluded corner in peaceful huts, and knew neither war nor conqueror. They led him to the hut of their chief, who received him hospitably, and placed before him dates, figs, and bread. At the close of their conversation two citizens entered as into their court of justice. The plaintiff said, “I bought of this man a piece of land, and, as I was making a deep drain through it, I found a treasure. This is not mine, for I bargained only for the land, and not for any treasure that might be concealed beneath it, and yet the former owner of the land will not receive it." The defendant answered, “I hope I have a conscience as well as my fellow citizen. I sold him the land with all its contingent as well as existing advantages, and consequently the treasure inclusively." The chief, who was at the same time their supreme judge, recapitulated their words, in order that the parties might see whether or no he understood them aright; then, after some reflection, said, "Thou hast a son, friend, I believe?" "Yes!" "And thou," addressing the other, "a daughter?" "Yes!" "Well then, let them be married, and bestow the treasure on the young couple for their marriage portion." Alexander seemed surprised and perplexed. "Think you my sentence unjust?" the chief asked him. "O, no," replied Alexander, "but it astonishes me." "And how, then," rejoined the chief, "would the case have been decided in your country ?" "To confess the truth," said Alexander, "we should have taken both parties into custody, and have seized the treasure for the king's use." "For the king's use!" exclaimed the chief,

greatly astonished. "Does the sun shine on that country ?" "O, yes!""Does it rain there ?" "Assuredly." "Wonderful! but are there tame animals in the country that live on the grass and green herbs?" "Very many, and of many kinds." "Ay, that must be the cause," said the chief, "for the sake of those innocent animals, the All gracious Being continues to let the sun shine and the rain drop down on your country." Coleridge.

SENSUAL DELIGHTS LOWEST.

In the scale of pleasure, the lowest are the sensual delights, which are succeeded by the more enlarged views and gay portraitures of a lively imagination, and these give way to the sublimer pleasures of reason, which discover the causes and designs, the frame, connection and symmetry of things, and fill the mind with the contemplation of intellectual beauty, order and truth. Hence I regard our schools and universities not only as nurseries of men for the service of Church and State, but also as places designed to teach mankind the most refined luxury, to raise the mind to its due perfection, and give it a taste for those entertainments which afford the highest transport, without the grossness or remorse that attend vulgar enjoyments.

LIFE BEFORE THE FLOOD.

I have wondered in former days at the patience of the antediluvian world, that they could endure a life almost millenary, with so little variety as seems to have fallen to their share. It is probable that they had much fewer employments than we. Their affairs lay in a narrower compass; their libraries were indifferently furnished; philosophical researches were carried on with much less industry and acuteness of penetration, and fiddles, perhaps, were not even invented. How could these seven or eight hundred years of life be supportable? I have asked this question formerly and been at a loss to resolve it, but I think I can answer it now. I will suppose myself born a thousand years before Noah was born or thought of. I rise with the sun; I worship; I prepare my breakfast; I swallow a bucket of goat's milk, and a dozen good-sizeable cakes. I fasten a new string to my bow, and my youngest boy, a lad of about thirty years of age, having played with my arrows till he has stript off all the feathers, I find myself obliged to repair them. The morning is thus spent in preparing for the chase, and it is become necessary that I should dine. I dig up my roots; I wash them; I boil them; I find them not done enough, I boil them again; my wife is angry; we dispute;

we settle the point; but in the mean time the fire goes out, and must be kindled again. All this is very amusing. I hunt; I bring home the prey; with the skin of it I mend an old coat, or I make a new one. By this time the day is far spent; I feel myself fatigued, and retire to rest. Thus, what with tilling the ground and eating the fruit of it, hunting, and walking, and running, and mending old clothes, and sleeping and rising again, I can suppose an inhabitant of the primeval world so much occupied as to sigh over the shortness of life, and to find, at the end of many centuries, that they had all slipped through his fingers, and were passed away like a shadow. William Cowper.

118.-THE CHARMER.

MRS. H. B. STOWE.

Socrates. However, you and Simmias appear to me as if you wished to sift this subject more thoroughly, and to be afraid, like children, lest, on the soul's departure from the body, winds should blow it away. **

Upon this Cebes said, "Endeavor to teach us better, Socrates. ** Perhaps there is a childish spirit in our breast, that has such a dread. Let us endeavor to persuade him not to be afraid of death, as of hobgoblins."

"But you must charm him every day," said Socrates, "until you have quieted his fears."

"But whence, O Socrates," he said, "can we procure a skillful charmer for such a case, now you are about to leave us?"

Greece is wide, Cebes," he replied; "and in it surely there are skillful men, and there are also many barbarous nations, all of which you should search, seeking such a charmer, sparing neither money nor toil, as there is nothing on which you can more reasonably spend your money."-Plato.

"We need that Charmer, for our hearts are sore
With longing for the things that may not be;
Faint for the friends that shall return no more;
Dark with distrust, or wrung with agony.

"What is this life? and what to us is death?

Whence came we? whither go? and where are those
Who, in a moment stricken from our side,
Passed to that land of shadow and repose?

"Are they all dust? and dust must we become?
Or are they living in some unknown clime?
Shall we regain them in that far-off home,
And live anew beyond the waves of time?

"O man divine! on thee our souls have hung;
Thou wert our teacher in these questions high;
But, ah, this day divides thee from our side,
And veils in dust thy kindly-guiding eye.

"Where is that Charmer whom thou bid'st us seek?
On what far shores may his sweet voice be heard?
When shall these questions of our yearning souls
Be answered by the bright eternal word?"

So spake the youth of Athens, weeping round,
When Socrates lay calmly down to die;
So spake the sage, prophetic of the hour

When earth's fair Morning Star should rise on high.
They found him not, those youths of soul divine,
Long seeking, wandering, watching on life's shore—
Reasoning, aspiring, yearning for the light,

Death came and found them-doubting as before. But years passed on; and lo! the Charmer came— Pure, simple, sweet, as comes the silver dew; And the world knew him not-he walked alone, Encircled only by his trusting few.

Like the Athenian sage rejected, scorned,

Betrayed, condemned, his day of doom drew nigh; He drew his faithful few more closely round,

And told them that his hour was come to die.

"Let not your heart be troubled," then he said;

"My Father's house hath mansions large and fair; I go before you to prepare your place;

I will return to take you with me there."

And since that hour the awful foe is charmed,
And life and death are glorified and fair.
Whither he went we know-the way we know-
And with firm step press on to meet him there.

119. THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.

SAMUEL WOODWORTH.

How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view!
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood,
And every loved spot that my infancy knew!
The wide-spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it;
The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell;
The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it,

And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well:
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket, that hung in the well.
That moss-covered vessel I hailed as a treasure;
For often at noon, when returned from the field,
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,

The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.